Scottish Association of Professional Homoeopaths (SAPH)

Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott

Jonathan's first experience of homoeopathy was in about 1975. He was training with Mary Austin, a renowned practitioner of homoeopathy, acupuncture and other therapies in London.

One day when he was sitting in with her during a consultation, she handed him a copy of Boericke's Materia Medica and Repertory and asked what he would suggest for the patient.

Jonathan had never seen the book before and his frantic scrabbling produced no sensible answer.

But he was fascinated by how the book described people and their problems.

So he began reading it, and while training in Chinese medicine and acupuncture it continued as a background interest.

Then one day at an acupuncture seminar, the lecturer happened to say that, if she got her time over again, she'd study homoeopathy instead.

Why? Because although it was harder to learn than acupuncture it was more elegant and also very efficient.

So in due course Jonathan studied homoeopathy in much greater detail and began collecting homoeopathic qualifications.

When he was in China for six months on a course in Chinese medicine, he caught a cold which became acute sinusitis: very painful, giving dizziness and headaches, nausea and insomnia.

His colleagues included not just professional acupuncturists but also psychiatrists, doctors, nurses and even dentists. All the medics took one look at his symptoms and prescribed antibiotics.

But Jonathan wasn't into antibiotics for sinusitis: it was painful but not life-threatening. Like most people who are sick, he couldn't make an objective diagnosis of himself. He knew he could treat it with acupuncture but it would take time to work.

Unable to sleep one night, he realised that his symptoms were better in the icy conditions outside and much worse indoors. Also that, most unusually, he found he liked tea. And he was better when taking a little exercise or changing position.

At that point, about 2am in the morning, he kicked himself and took one dose of Pulsatilla 30.

Almost immediately he fell asleep, and when he woke up a few hours later, all his symptoms had completely gone.

The pain and phlegm? Gone, and he could think straight.

When he arrived for the morning lecture, his colleagues were a bit surprised to see him, given how he'd been feeling worse and worse for some days.

But they could see he was better. So they all congratulated him on taking their advice - the antibiotics! But he'd taken a remedy, not an antibiotic!

There's nothing like personal experience to convince you something works.

The trouble with homoeopathy is that it's not easy to identify the right homoeopathic remedy - the medicine - for a patient.

Homoeopaths often spend hours thinking about a remedy for a patient, time that the patient isn't aware of.

Of course, they've also spent years learning about the homoeopathic philosopy of health and disease, and studying and becoming familiar with remedies.

But when patients return 20 years after having received from you one single dose as a child, now bringing their own children for treatment, it can be very satisfying.

Jonathan now sees patients only part-time. The rest of his time is spent helping to run various organisations and writing or lecturing.

In his spare time he has set up investment clubs and run a marketing organisation, managed a foreign property company and still runs a small publishing company. Oh, and he used to be a Chartered Accountant.

He might have made an excellent Primary school teacher - he knows very little about lots and lots! Unfortunately he lacked the brains, emotional intelligence, fortitude and patience to teach children.

Recently he's written two books, one on a subject he knows lots about from personal experience and has often treated: 'Qi Stagnation - Signs of Stress'; another on 'Burnout and Exhaustion - What to Do!' More books are on their way, currently in various stages of disarray.

He has a website that is visited by many thousands of people every month from all round the world.

He often joins his wife who works abroad a lot of the time, and he gardens. But don't try to visit his garden because the weeds are always ahead.

Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott giving Margaret Roy, Past Chair of SAPH, Founder and Principal of the Scottish College of Homoeopathy, and author of many renowned text-books, her SAPH Fellowship certificate in November 2013.